Month: October 2012

September 2011: Microsoft announced Windows 8 at the Build conference, with the intended audience being software developers and hardware manufacturers. Software developers were a little slow at getting on board, but the flow of apps in the Windows Store has increased. There might be an unfortunate number of Pong and Hangman games, but there are a few gems in there too. I suspect that Build was not the first time that the major OEMs saw Windows 8. Correction: I know it wasn’t

So why on earth is there no Windows 8 tablet (Windows RT or Windows 8) stock from any Microsoft hardware partner out there to be found?  Amazon (USA/UK) has nothing.  Best Buy appears to have nothing.  Laptops Direct isn’t shipping stock until November 27th, a full month after GA/announcement. Dell isn’t shipping the XPS 10 until December 5th.

You can buy Windows 8 online or in a store. You can buy nice big chunky Windows 7 laptops in stores that are Windows 8 logo/installed.  Only Sony appears to have a touch Ultrabook in the shops at the moment. There are no shortage of AiOs in the stores but people want tablets and light laptops now.

Where the hell are the devices that people want (tablets)? After all, Microsoft is a devices and services company now.

The market thinks that maybe Microsoft came up with the Surface to be a flagship product, something to show the OEMs that devices could be designed and be different from the normal Android device.  I used to think that too.  I suspect that Microsoft saw the OEMs dragging their knuckles last year and decided to act so they would have a product on the market when Windows 8 was launched. 

Imagine: Windows 8 launches as a device OS and there are no devices on the market. And that’s exactly what’s happened for most of the world because Surface is only available to purchase in a few countries (not that different to Apple’s original release of the iPad) – you have to be able to pay with a credit card addresses in those countries.

Meanwhile, Apple are releasing new ranges of iPad on Friday I believe. Sure, there might be the usual shortage of supply, but they’ll still have devices out there across the world, and they’ll sell bucket loads of the iPad Mini while the Microsoft partner stock will be somewhere on a steamboat between “here” and Taiwan/China.  Microsoft did a great job in building up momentum, but the hardware partners have completely let the side down, letting customers walk into stores looking for Windows 8 devices and only finding Android or iPad.

Note: Microsoft subsidiary staff really need to stop talking and selling the Surface. It just isn’t available in the majority of the countries where it is being promoted, and they’re wasting oxygen because the partner stock isn’t there either. Save your powder until there is something to sell.

I took a tour of retail outlets in Ireland this morning to see what splash Windows 8 had made.  And when I got back to the office, I found that Microsoft had sent us a batch of cup cakes to celebrate:

So what sort of splash has Windows 8 made?  I visited 4 outlets, 2 from ChainA and 2 from ChainB.  The two chains always build in the same business parks so that made it easy.

In my local retail park, ChainA got me really down.  They had 20-30 laptops there, almost all being big classic Windows 7 devices, the stereo typical thing that the iPad and Macbook have been crushing lately.  They had 3 Windows 8 models on sale: 2 Lenovos and a Tosh ultrabook.  None had touch at all. 

Next door, ChainB was stocking mostly Windows 8 product.  Any remaining Windows 7 product was marked for clearance.  They’d been clever, pricing their product to clear so they would be competitive after the GA of Windows 8.  The Lenovo 27” AiO was there *drools*.  Forget the Dell One AiO.  The Lenovo is beautiful and impressive.  You have not live until you have done a 27” pinch zoom in Maps to go from continent level to neighbourhood detail. 

They also had a Sony T13 Ultrabook with touch.  I’m considering this as my Asus UX31 replacement … cos we are Sony distributors and I can buy from stock   The Sony slider was there too. 

Here I chatted with a part-time trainee sales guy who was a student.  I showed him how, using Windows 8 devices he could take notes in OneNote and run the camera app to record a lecture in class.  His eyes opened and that’s when he revealed that he has Dyslexia and has trouble taking notes.  Windows 8 side-by-side apps to the rescue – and I am not doing hyperbole here.  I wonder if MSFT considered this when they demonstrated the student scenario at the Surface launch.

Off to Dublin to visit 2 headline outlets for ChainA and Chain B where Microsoft Ireland had brought the press this morning.  There was a Microsoft presence here to do customer demonstrations.

In ChainB, they continued to have lots of Windows 8 stock as in the rural outlet.  They also had a mix of classic laptops (no touch) running Windows 8 in all sizes, some of which had the larger gesture (touch) pads with Windows 8 gesture support.  Asus and Samsung ultrabooks on hand did not have touch/gesture support.  The funny moment was when a customer came in and asked a sales guy if they had sold out of Surfaces; Surface is only in Microsoft stores (they only exist in the USA at the moment) and in select Microsoft Online Stores. The UK online store will not accept Irish billing addresses – we tried in the office.

EDIT: This outlet of ChainB opened for 2 hours at midnight last night.  They did a full day’s business in those 2 hours and considered it worthwhile.  I was surprised but happy.

Back in ChainA, and about 25% of this headline outlet’s stock was Windows 8, but not one of them was touch enabled. 

Who’s to blame?  It appears that the manufacturer’s let the side down.  I know that certain stock has not made it to Ireland, and I’ve just heard that even the UK (considered one of the major Microsoft markets) is undersupplied.  The demand is there – the shops were active when they opened the doors and I can hear our sales people on the floor dealing with retail outlets around the country.  Windows 8 is trending on Twitter.  The online media are talking about Microsoft and Windows 8 devices.  The radio in Ireland is talking about Microsoft, Windows 8, new devices, and their 27th anniversary on this island (including that part of Windows 8 was developed a few KMs from where I’m sitting).  And some big names in Ireland, such as the GAA (our biggest sports organisation with a very nice multimedia app), the Irish Times, etc, had apps published in the store in the last few days.

Here is the most depressing thing: there is not one Windows 8 tablet for sale in the country.  So Time Square might have been buzzing last night, but in my personal opinion (and I am not speaking for my employers), the manufacturers let the side down and missed out on a lot of momentum this morning.  That’s what I heard from them – and I know we can’t blame the channel.

Maybe stock will start coming in next week, maybe next month.  I’ll post something when it does.

On a positive note: go find a Lenovo 27” AiO and do a 27 inch pinch zoom on a Windows 8 app

EDIT: Dell Ireland is accepting orders for the XPS 10 Windows RT tablet – my preferred option because of the rigid keyboard. 

People are delighted, and they’re snap dancing around the world … apparently  Surface is a “stage of Windows 8”.  There are more stages … Surfaces … to come?

The 10.6 inches diagonal screen is what Windows was designed to work on (side by side apps).  The display is Cleartype.  The panel was designed from the ground up by MSFT.  The tablet was designed from the inside out, with weight distribution in mind.  It has to feel “great” … light and balanced.  Weight distribution reduces stress on the wrists. 

The MicroSD (up to 64 GB) is under the kick stand.  You could swap cards for those long journeys, archiving lots of photos on a vacation, etc.  Speaker says he watched movies on a 10 hour flight to china without charging.  In a layover, he nearly did a 100% charge.

There are 2 wireless antennas for signal quality.  Speaker claims he connected to hotel wifi when staff said he wouldn’t be able to at the hotel roof pool.

He talks about the screen contrast and lack of reflectivity (how the screen is bonded).  Independent reviews call this out.  As a photographer, I understand the importance of this.  Using SmartGlass, he throws the movie that is playing to an Xbox and the projected screen.  He repeats with music to stress how you can take advantage of your surround sound system for music.

Hydro Thunder is up.  I miss it from the beta.  Very good 3D graphics

He drops one from held up position to prove a point.  The build is SOLID and he picks it up to use it.  They then show the “surface keyboard” (d not do this) when Sinofsky rode one.  Speak of the devil … he comes out to reclaim it. 

Clever usage of side-by-side with angled back camera.  With the kickstand open, he records the audience and writes, just like a student could record a lecture and take notes at the same time.  Very very nice.  Beat that iPad.

Steven SInofsky comes on stage to plug in a DSLR directly into a Surface via the USB port to upload some pictures into a blog post in Word.  iPad, can you do that?  Dongle what now?

And in-store sales start at 00:01 on the 26th in the USA.

That’s a wrap!